The story to date:

Since I was a little kid I've enjoyed programming. No, I loved programming. I spent more time in front of a computer from ages 7-28 than I did doing everything else combined. Then came Silicon Spice and the transition to management, and I could no longer spend my time doing what I loved. I gained weight, I was anxious and stressed, and I didn't sleep much. With few exceptions (mainly working late at night in the lab on chip bringup), the fun of hi-tech was gone. Then came the purchase by Broadcom, and the incompetent management switch, and even more disillusionment. I quit a year later after helping to dismantle the company I had spent 5 years helping to build, and took an entire year off trying to recover from the burnout.

I failed.

I never wanted to see another program, and especially not another hi-tech startup, in my life. Instead I looked elsewhere for a new career, and found it in flight instruction. It combined the pleasure of being outside, of working one-on-one with people, of being self-employed, with the challenge of learning new skills. I've been doing that full time for 5 years. Every year I teach a little less, and need a little more downtime. I started by flying 7 days/week, then 6, then 5, then 4, and now 3. Being an instructor is still fun and rewarding, but I can't do it full time anymore. I'm burned out again, and the challenge is mostly gone. Finishing all of those airplane ratings didn't help - now there's nothing to shoot for.

So, as everyone who reads this journal knows, last year I started getting interested in astronomy. At first it was just photography, then it was science, and then I signed up for a 3-year commitment to do a Masters degree. In one of my current courses I'm working on a major project where I have to write ... gasp ... software. And I'm loving it! It took more than 7 years to recover from Silicon Spice, but I once again can enjoy programming like I used to. And oddly enough there seems to be quite a demand for people who can write software well, are interested in astronomy, and, by the way, will work for peanuts. Oh well, you can't have everything.

The rest of the story:

Yesterday I met with Mark Showalter, a well-known planetary researcher (and fyellin's husband), to discuss future employment opportunities at the SETI Institute. I will start working for him part time at the beginning of July. The scope of the project isn't entirely clear to me yet, but has something to do with writing a scientific-quality suite of image processing software to work with images from Voyager, Cassini, and New Horizons. Oddly enough there isn't much out there right now because none of the researchers have the time or money to write it. There's some chance that if we write something good that it will be distributed and used throughout the scientific community. It's a daunting task, and one I don't feel prepared for, but that's half the challenge. And it will certainly be educational, and a way for me to get my foot in the door with the scientific community for possible future career opportunities.

And, oh yes, it doesn't pay anything :-) At least not yet. But that's OK. It will be fun, and challenging, and hopefully funding will be available later to keep me on in a paid position.

I'm still planning to fly 3 days/week for the rest of the summer, both to honor my commitment to my existing students and to make some money. But I think it's safe to say that I've started a gradual switch to my third real career. Where it will take me I have no idea!